The release of Donald Trump, Jr.,’s e-mails regarding a meeting last
June with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, show that, contrary
to President Trump’s previous statements, representatives of his
campaign were apparently willing to accept help from the Russians in
order to win the election. This is obviously a political problem for the
President and his Administration, but is it also evidence of criminal
behavior?

“Collusion” is not a legal term in this context, nor is it a crime.
Neither is listening to outlandish tales, even from foreigners. But
Trump, Jr.,’s e-mails do raise questions of possible criminal behavior,
starting with violations of campaign-finance laws. Federal law prohibits
American campaign officials from soliciting from foreign governments
“anything of value . . . in connection with” an election. In the meeting
with Veselnitskaya, did Trump, Jr., or Jared Kushner, the candidate’s
son-in-law, or Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign manager, who were
also in attendance, solicit anything of value? The e-mails don’t
clearly answer that question. But it is possible that they solicited
information–perhaps specific information, relating to, say, e-mail
accounts associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Robert Mueller, the
special counsel investigating Russian interference in the campaign,
might conclude that such a solicitation could constitute a crime, and he
might ask a grand jury to return an indictment on that theory. (The
possibility of a prosecution based on an “anything-of-value” theory has been
explored in greater detail by Robert Bauer, President Obama’s White
House counsel, and by Rick Hasen, an election-law specialist, in several posts.)

But this narrow view of one meeting fails to provide a full picture of
how prosecutors approach criminal investigations. There are thousands of
e-mails between members of Trump’s campaign for investigators to
examine. Do any of those messages say anything about the meeting? Are
other meetings with Russians described in them? In some respects, the
person most exposed by the released e-mails is not Trump, Jr., but Jared
Kushner, who continues to serve as a high-ranking White House adviser.
More to the point, under penalty of law, Kushner filed an application to
receive a security clearance, which was supposed to list all his foreign
contacts. He did not initially disclose the June meeting, and
congressional Democrats have been calling for his security clearance to
be revoked. Inadvertence and bad memory are valid defenses in
false-statement cases, but could Kushner seriously contend that a
meeting set up with an e-mail heading “Russian – Clinton – private and
confidential” simply slipped his mind?

Certainly the attendees at that meeting, as well as other Trump campaign officials, will
be asked by F.B.I. agents, and perhaps before a grand jury, about
contacts with the Russians. Any sort of false statement in these
contexts would be a federal crime. Federal law also bars the kind of
hacking that was visited upon John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman,
and the Democratic National Committee; if any Trump officials aided and
abetted the hacking, that, too, would be a crime.

In addition to those concerns, there are other legal issues at stake. In
the broader subject of obstruction of justice, the President’s decision
to fire James Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., will
be central to Mueller’s inquiries. If Mueller decides to go further
afield into Trump’s financial matters, there are possible violations of
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, especially relating to the Trump
hotel in Azerbaijan. (See Adam Davidson’s story on the subject.)
In white-collar cases, federal prosecutors also frequently make use of
the broadly worded statute barring money laundering.

Then there is the matter of espionage, in which Trump
associates could possibly have been victims as well as accomplices.
Shortly after the election, Kushner, a novice in government, allegedly
set up a back channel to communicate with the Russian government, using
communication facilities operated by the Putin regime. At a minimum,
this is deeply naïve on Kushner’s part; whether something more sinister
was afoot is worthy of investigation. In total, the newly disclosed
Trump, Jr., e-mails do not prove that any crimes were committed, but
they make Mueller’s to-do list even longer.